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“So what do we do, Coach?”

“I may have a guy. But it might be kind of a tough sell.”

“You mean like hiring a head coach who punched out the previous head coach?” I said. “That kind of tough sell?”

“Compared to the guy I’m thinking about,” Ryan said, “I’m a Cub Scout.”

He shrugged.

“But we’re trying to win now, correct?”

“That would be extremely helpful.”

When he told me who it was, I laughed.

“You think I’m joking?”

“No. I was thinking that just when I was off the front page, here I am, being pulled back in.”

Then we called Thomas and put him on speakerphone and told him who we wanted to bring in for a tryout.

“Wait,” my brother said. “He’s out of prison?”

Thirty-One

HIS SISTER HAD JUSTwalked right into his office a little before nine in the morning, not caring if he might be in a meeting or on some kind of important call—not that he was making or taking any calls like that these days, at least as they related to the Wolves.

She acts as if she’s always had the run of the place,Danny thought.

But she’d find out soon enough that she was only renting here, as if her office, down the hall, were an Airbnb. The only surprise, considering what they’d thrown at her so far, was that she wasn’t gone already.

“You never knocked when we were kids, either,” Danny said to his sister.

“I believe,” Jenny said, “that’s how I walked in on you and Peggy Brooks playing doctor that time.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Danny said.

“Well, I’ve got something I want to say to you.”

“Don’t care.”

But he could see she was dug in. When she got like that, Danny knew, it was like trying to stop the ocean.

“Is it true that you started the process of selling this football team to John Gallo before the reading of the will?”

“No,” he said.

“Liar.”

“Prove it.”

“If I could prove it, I wouldn’t be in here asking you. And hoping to get an honest answer out of you for once in your life.”

“You just asked,” he said. “I just told you. Now beat it.”

“If it’s true, I’ll find out.”

“You know what you should do?” Danny said. “Ask Gallo if it’s true.”